For the first time, scientists have created a one-dimensional gas made of pure light, and want to use it to study how photons, or particles of light, behave at the quantum level.
The scientists created the new state, called a photon gas, by firing a laser into a glowing container filled with a dye, causing the photons in the material to appear. calm and then shut up. The researchers published their findings Sept. 6 in the journal Nature physics.
“To create these types of gases, we need to focus a lot of photons into space and cool them at the same time,” the author of the research paper. Frank Vewingera scientist at the University of Bonn, said that a statement.
Photons are bosons, particles with integer numbers, which means they can occupy one state in space at a time. When the atmosphere of bosons is cool and the temperature is close to zero, the elements in it lose their energy, entering the same energy state.
As we can distinguish between other similar particles and gas clouds by looking at their energy levels, this structure has a great effect: the cloud is shaking, jiggling, things are gathering. which causes the gas to heat up and become, from quantum mechanics thought, in its full form, produces a rare form of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate.
Affected: In 20 years the frontiers of quantum superchemistry have been revealed‘
Being in the form of a condensate makes the position of the molecules in the gas highly uncertain. As a result, each particle can form a column larger and larger than the space between them. Instead of being separate objects, then, the photons in the photon gas act as if they were just one mass of value.
Scientists have created a photon gas in two dimensions before. But creating them in one way is more subtle.
“Things are a little different when we’re producing one-dimensional gas instead of two-dimensional,” Vewinger said. “Changes called thermal fluctuations take place in photon gasses and they are so small in two dimensions that they do not have any effect. However, in one dimension these changes can – for example – make big waves.”
To create a one-dimensional photon gas, the researchers filled a small glowing pocket with a solution before shining a laser into it. Photons of laser light bounced back and forth through the bag until they collided with the dye particles, which stripped them of their energy and caused them to clump together.
By adding a transparent polymer to the reflective walls of the bag, the researchers were able to manipulate the way they reflected light so that it focused more precisely on one side – or sign.
“These polymers act as a kind of gutter, but in this case for light,” the lead author Kirankumar Karkihalli Umesha doctoral student at the University of Bonn said in the statement. “The narrower the goal, the more the gas behaves in one direction.”
By studying their newly created 1D photon gas, the researchers confirmed that it behaves very differently from its 2D counterpart. Unlike the 2D photon gasses, the temperature change of their 1D cousin prevents them from completely condensing in some areas. This creates a phase transition between the laser light and its condensate form that “blows” across the gas, like unprocessed cold water, according to the researchers.
Determining how the photon gas varies across dimensions could help researchers discover quantum effects that have yet to be discovered, the researchers said.
#Scientists #discovered #gas #pure #light